The Old Man Who Lives in a Box
by This Grill is not a Home
Summary: There's a box, deep in the woods, that never stops screaming. And anyone that goes into the forest looking for it never comes back out alive. Except Jack.


**bc im letting my depression is slowly taking over and i need an outlet. based on an old urban legend from where i live.**

Does the screaming ever stop?

It comes from the forest, every night, like clockwork. Muffled screaming and bangs, coming from the deepest part. So many trees you can barely see past them, and the only break a river that can be seen sometimes.

No one goes into the forest, because they know if they go in, they aren't coming back out.

It runs right by the elemtary and middle school, by both the playground and the blacktop. The blacktop at the middle school has a gap in it that leads down into a small clearing, and the trees at the playground are so thick that the little kids can only peer into it.

The kids who sneak from the blacktop in the forest, and climb up an old, dead tree can see into that deepest part of the forst, between all of the trees.

But late at night, when Jack is in town and floating over the forest, all he can hear is the screaming and begging and pounding.

It drives deep into his head, and it makes his ears ring and his heart feels like it's about to start beating again.

But he doesn't want to go down. He knows if he does, he isn't coming back out. The forest dosn't spare anybody. The Leprechaun went in, and none of the other Guardians have heard from him since.

He stands there at the edge of the forest, by the lake. He doesn't dare to go in, and only stares into the forest. The sun is setting and the clouds are speeding along, like time is speeding up around him.

And then the screaming starts.

Again.

Just like every other night.

ZXZXZXZ

They knock their heads back and put cool glass against their lips, paper lunch bags crinkling in their hands. A chorus of joyus giggle come from their mouthes, their face covered in a deep red.

The roots and missappenly scattered branches send them to the ground, and cover the palms of their hands and knees in moss and dirt. The ground behind them starts smelling bitter, and shiny shards mark their trails.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"The whispers."

"Eh?"

"Nevermind."

They continue on, abandoning their paper bags and pretty bottles and scarves and jackets and everything else that hides their scars and bruises and tiny scabs.

They lay under the trees in a pile, sweating all over each other and rolling in the moss.

The screaming starts but they are so hypnotized by each other they can't hear it. The screaming gets louder and louder until the leaves and ground start to shake and their ears are filled with it and they can't ignore it now.

Something is standing behind them, with a warped mind, body, and soul. A wrinkled hand with knarled joints reach out, and they don't know whose scream is whose.

The ground goes cold and the screaming stops.

For now.

ZXZXZXZ

Cars are swarming around and Pippa is crying with a blanket wrapped around her shoulder, and the lights flashing around her are making her cry harder.

Black plastic is pulled over staring, unblinking faces, and Jamie can't stop standing there, staring at them. Their maws are pulled open in a silent, unending scream.

It's the first time any of them have seen a body so cold and pale and soulless.

The moms are ushering everyone back into the houses, and Pippa is being driven far, far away from the screams and her mom, who is being tied up in silver and jammed into a car and men are yelling at her.

Jamie doesn't move until Sophie tugs him by his shirt sleeve into the house, and his eyes are fixed on the horizon where the sun is just starting to come up. The tall kids marching along the sidewalks pull their hoods over their heads and hug their books to their chest and avoid looking at the forest.

"They should've known better."

And the screaming doesn't end.

ZXZXZXZ

Jamie's eyes are red and raw. There are two wet spot on his pillow and they keep on getting more saturated until the tapping on his window starts up. It doesn't stop until he gets up and open the frosted glass.

Jack hops in and smiles in a futile attempt to cheer him up. He is shocked when Jamie throws his arms around him and starts sobbing.

It doesn't stop until his nose starts running and he's hiccuping and he feels like he's going to throw up.

Jack pats his back and tells him everything is going to be alright and his stomache twists up at his own blatant lie. He picks Jamie up when he tires himself out, and tucks him back in under the thick duvet and slips out the window silently.

The suns rays cut in through the frost and coat his room in a warm yellow glow. No one's getting up today, no one in the gang. Their mothers are worried.

It's about time he does something about that screaming.

ZXZXZXZ

The kids at the black top said there was a box, an odd shaped box.

"It's huge!"

"Yeah, seven feet long-"

"And three wide!"

"What's it doing out there?"

"The old man lives there."

"Who's the old man?"

"We- we don't know..."

"I remember back when I was little my brother told he took kids out at the playground."

"Only 3rd graders though."

Jack leaves, with more questions than answers and waits until the wind and the mothers start screaming.

ZXZXZXZ

The deepest part of the forest is the part no one comes back from.

They were lucky because they were dumped in the river that only sometimes appears.

Jack leaves a letter with Phil, and tells him he isn't coming back.

"It's to protect the kids." That grin is fake but the tears are real.

He lands gently on the moss, not enjoying the feeling of it. His frost and snow doesn't reach here. He treads carefully, following the sparkling shards and paper bags and pretty bottle and scarves and jackets and everything else that hides their scars and bruises and tiny scabs. He passes the red roses over the cold ground and grimaces as the petals stick to feet.

It's unavoidable though, and he follows the screams from that point on.

There's a small clearing; no trees, but dead and brittle arms that might have been reach up from the ground and there is a nest of hastily woven twigs. Moonie cast a weak light that makes the surrounding trees lean over and bowing their heads for the pile of dirt in the middle. Static crawled along the edge of his vision, and everything seemed blurred.

The only patch of bare dirt is a small mound that shakes with screams and pounding and as he moves closer, crook up and pointed, he can hear pleading

"Oh God, please don't leave me here! Let me out, I don't know what I did wrong. I don't want to die!"

Theres sobbing and screaming then silence for a very long time, and Jack doesn't move.

The small, broken voice should startle him.

"I don't want to be alone anymore."

The static is gone, and Jack can see every inch of the mass graveyard clearly now. Small crosses stick up from under the nest, and the river that comes through sometimes is lined with them as well.

There is a wooden shipping crate resting where the mound should have been, and the lid is slightly cracked open.

Jack destroys the nest as he make his way over, and sees a label pasten on the rotting cover:

From: ?

To: America

DO NOT RETURN TO SENDER

He dusts off the cover and memorizes the name of wher it came from. He heaves the lid of the box off and falls down when he does.

It was too small to be an old man, too large to be a child. The brown matches the streaks covering the inside of the lid, and there are holes covered with remanents of thick cloth.

"Why?"

Jack tilts his head back to see the warps mind, body, and soul. But the body isn't warped anymore, but the eyes still are.

"That's you?"

It looks away and crosses its arms. "You're not leaving."

"I know."

"You don't care?"

"I know what's like to be alone. You shouldn't be either, not anymore."

There's a strong gust of wind, and it's wrong because Jack didn't call for it. The edge of the nest start curling up and Jack realises it isn't a nest.

It's a bear trap.

"Why aren't you scared? The others were."

"Well, they never knew what it was like to be alone. I'll stay here, okay? We'll have some fun, and we'll never be alone again."

The skin he touches doesn't feel right, like it will come right off. It flinches, and it doesn't, so he reaches again.

"I'm not going to leave you, and you aren't going to be trapped here any more, okay? Come with me, and you can meet other people who'll make sure you won't ever be alone either, alright?"

Tears start running down its face and the bear trap closes on them. It cries and cries and cries and scream and screams and screams.

Jack can't feel Moonie anymore, all ties are cut, and it feels awfully empty. But it wraps its arms around him, and Jack doesn't feel all that bad about it.

But it squeezes tighter and tighter and Jack can't breathe anymore.

Did he ever need to breathe in the first place?

But it still squeezes and Jack's vision start fading. He doesn't want to leave it alone, but he can't hold on like this, and he doesn't want to stop it, so he presses a kiss to its hair.

"Hey buddy, don't worry about a thing. I'll still be here."

They fall to the bottom of the nest.

And the screaming stops.

ZXZXZXZ

The bright, chilly light of the sun cuts through his sleepiness like a knife.

When he sits up, the nest is gone, and he's laying in a clearing of crosses and dirt and and no river. There's not shipping crate next to him, but freshly dug up dirt piled into an old hole instead.

He pulls himself up with his crook and looks around. He almost doesn't spot it against the trees.

"Thank you. I need to go now."

"But I thought you didn't want to be alone?"

It looks down at its feet and shuffles a little. "I want to stay with you, but there's something waiting for me. And I-I'm not afraid to be alone anymore, so I'll be fine until I get there."

He turns around and heads into the forest, and Jack is almost sad to see him go, but he lets the figure retreat and blend into the forest.

Jack soars away onto the winds and heads to North's workshop. He never mentions his aching waist or ringing ears to anyone.

 **t. i just got done with 2 hours of wrapping presents with rotg in the background. and also the internet's out so i dont know when this is going out.**


End file.
